Web applications deliver accessible and powerful services to consumers and businesses throughout the world. At the heart of modern banking, e-commerce and cloud-based IT provision, they are an attractive and easy target for cyber criminals. In common with all software, web applications contain vulnerabilities which can be exploited by a hacker to steal confidential information directly or to create a transmission platform to infect another computer with malware.
Penetration testing or ethical hacking is a key technical audit tool for the risk assessment of a software application. A web application penetration test is designed to identify security weaknesses which have been unknowingly added by software developers as they design, code and publish their software.